It's NOT who you know...

It's NOT who you know - it's WHO knows YOU!

The tides are turning... it used to be that, in order to advance your career or increase your business, the more people you knew, the better

Of course to some extent, this still holds true. However, in today's business and relationship world, it is even more important who knows you and what you stand for

Why?

It's simple. If you build your business and professional relationships around the people you know, the ball will always be in your court; you will be the one that actively has to reach out, you will be the one that has to explain the value that you bring to the table etc.

Now, let's turn this around

If you manage to establish a strong personal brand with a clear 'mission statement' for yourself, i.e. what can you do, who are you, how do you roll etc., and manage to get your personal branding message across, you will have people coming to you for whatever you stand for

I believe that time spend managing your personal brand is worth much more than managing personal relationships - don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that you should stop meeting people or stop building relations, I'm suggesting that you do both

It has to be a combination - as an individual, you need a personal mission statement and you need to be true to this statement in whatever you do - and you need to make sure that everybody knows this and knows about you

When they do, all of a sudden you will have all of your relations working for you instead of you working for them - they will know when to contact you when they need what they know you can deliver - and the stronger your message, the broader the reach of you and your brand

In the professional world, LinkedIn is still king of professional social networks, so it's a must your profile is updated, professional and sharp - you might even want to publish posts on a regular basis to make sure your professional network has you top-of-mind, whenever they are in need of what you do

....I guess you already know where this is going, right? Your professional headshot...

I believe that no matter how professional your profile is, how cool your posts are and how awesome you are, with the wrong picture, it doesn't matter - people will always look at your picture before even considering what you write and do on any website